


Love Is Just A Bloodsport

by Sidara



Series: Rattle Loose Your Bones [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Gen, M/M, Magic!Stiles, Original Character(s), Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-28 09:28:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sidara/pseuds/Sidara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crossing the line meant never looking back and Stiles learned long ago to live with what he’s done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Is Just A Bloodsport

**Author's Note:**

> Again, mostly non-linear and told from Stiles’ limited pov. Maybe 90% Teen Wolf and 10% Avengers this time around, but still 100% ridiculousness, because this is a crossover I never thought I'd write.
> 
> The ‘Now’ parts in the timeline for this fic are six months from the ‘Now’ parts in the first fic. Which means the timeline has grown older and, say, a ‘Four years ago’ part in this fic is a ‘Three years ago’ part in the first fic. I think. I hope. I kind of suck at math. I know, it’s a little confusing, I don’t know why I do this to myself. Someone should take away my alcohol as punishment.
> 
> Trigger warning for mention of the aftermath of rape of an OC.

_Now_

“He needs to be executed,” Sara Little Light said. Her voice coming through the speaker of Stiles’ latest burner cell phone was flat and tinny, anger forcibly held in check.

“He’s a United States Senator,” David replied, sounding exasperated. David had been repeating that line for the past hour and Stiles was getting sick of the reminder. He wasn’t the only one, judging by the sound Sara made.

“He’s head of the Gallagher family and was behind the push in Congress to lift the gray wolves’ Endangered Species protections. While I’m sure farming and ranching associations lobbied for the change in status in a mistaken effort to protect what’s theirs, the Gallaghers are using it as an excuse to hunt not only wolves, but _werewolves_. They’re going after packs that haven’t broken the laws against harming humans in at least a few decades. My state isn’t the only one dealing with the slaughter of people under the guise of a trumped up law instead of a rigidly held code.”

“Then maybe Montana should do what California did and put in state protections for the wolves.”

“Not all of us are lucky enough to live in a liberal stronghold with our heads in the clouds,” was Sara’s acidic response.

“Hey ,” Stiles cut in before the two could start fighting again. “There’s ten of us on the line and you two have been eating up most of the minutes of this call. We need to make a decision.”

Nicole, Tiana’s mother and one of the higher ranking wardens in charge of the northeast, would usually handle this kind of call to hammer out the details of a high profile execution. Once Nicole learned who was up for sentencing though, she’d handed the problem to Stiles over a power lunch on Monday in the form of an encrypted flashdrive.

His review of the files on it resulted in him not sleeping for two days straight.

“I’ve put the Gallagher family on notice. Repeatedly. They’ve been warned but if there’s no follow through, that’s going to give other hunters ideas,” Sara said.

“Not ideas, but carte blanche to ignore the codes they follow. If that happens, we’re going to be neck deep in bodies on both sides of this fight,” Javier said. The Floridian was one of the more conservative wardens on the conference call and had been demanding blood just as loudly as Sara.

“My concern isn’t the proof. I don’t doubt what the Gallaghers are doing,” David said. “My concern is that you’re talking about executing a hunter who just happens to be a Senator.”

“Being an elected government official shouldn’t be something Ted Gallagher gets to hide behind.”

“You kill him, the hunters will see it as an execution but the rest of the country will see it as an assassination. Do you know what kind of heat that could bring down on us? Killing him won’t reverse Congress’ action in regards to the gray wolves.”

“But it’ll protect the _werewolves_. It’ll bring back the status quo we had before this mess happened,” Sara stubbornly pointed out. “Quotas are handed out for gray wolves. It’s been open season year round for the werewolf packs in my state and they won’t stand for it much longer. We’ve already had some push back in the rural towns.”

“Same,” several wardens from a few other western states agreed, their voices echoing on the line.

“We need to approach this carefully. Our entire existence will be thrown into upheaval if this gets traced back to us,” David said after a long, tense moment where the only sound on the line was static.

Stiles cleared his throat loudly. “I’m standing in for Nicole because she thinks this problem is one I can fix. I’ll take the job if no one else is comfortable handling it.”

“Far be it from me to question your record, but I don’t think you have the ability to pull this off. I don’t know if any of us do.”

“You’re a Park Ranger in Yosemite, David. I’m Tony Stark’s personal assistant. Trust me when I say I’ve got the connections for this execution that you don’t.”

Someone made a surprised sound over the line but no one protested Stiles’ claim.

“The job is yours,” Sara said quietly after a few seconds of silence. “Let me know what you need and I’ll provide what information I can.”

“Good luck,” David bit out before hanging up.

Static turned to dead air as everyone else on the conference call hung up. Stiles put the cell phone on his office desk in Avengers Tower, buried his head in his hands, and moaned. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.”

How was this his life?

*

_Six years ago_

High school graduation was held on the field where they’d lost a lot of games and sweat and blood, and won their lives from the teeth of the alpha pack at the end of junior year. Stiles literally danced on a hidden grave or two in the field on graduation day (Erica grooved with Boyd over one in the corner by the goal post and Stiles didn’t begrudge them their dance moves at all) and his dad chalked it up to the excitement of the day while Melissa had an achingly relieved smile tacked onto her face.

“Dude! We graduated!” Scott said, laughing, as he crashed into Stiles, knocking both their caps off their heads.

Stiles reeled him in for a tight hug, the other teen’s excitement hard to ignore. “Right?! For awhile there, I didn’t think we’d make it.”

Scott’s grip got inhumanly tight for a couple of seconds, making Stiles’ ribs creak. Then he let go, taking a step back to bend over and retrieve their caps. Scott handed one to Stiles and put his own back on his head. “We made it, though.”

The _together_ went unsaid. A lot of things had gone unsaid and left by the wayside since Scott figured out that Stiles wasn’t merely dabbling in magic, but owning that shit like a boss. Stiles, for his part, excelled at ignoring how Scott ignored the gigantic herd of elephants that kept them both company whenever they were in the same room together. The rest of the pack still didn’t know how to treat their fractured friendship but Stiles figured it wouldn’t matter soon.

Stiles was leaving in a week. He still hadn’t told anyone yet.

A familiar figure slipped through the crowd, bright strawberry blonde hair perfectly curled at the ends, makeup pristine on a pale face. Lydia was the only one in their class to have bought her graduation robes outright in order to tailor them so she didn’t look like a walking burlap sack (“I’m not in mourning, this is a celebration, not a funeral.”).

“You two better not miss the party tonight. It took me weeks to convince Derek not to hold it at his place and my parents promised to leave before anyone gets there,” Lydia said.

“Considering that I was the one who bought most of the food and hauled it to your house, you can be sure I’m going to be there to eat my half of it,” Stiles told her.

(He was and he did, but that came later.)

After graduation crowds thinned and the excitement settled into something softer, after dinner with his dad and before the graduation party, Stiles opened the door to his bedroom and wasn’t surprised to find Derek sitting on his bed, waiting for him.

“Creeping around one last time for old time’s sake?” Stiles asked.

Derek held up a piece of paper that should’ve been hidden in the bottom drawer of Stiles’ desk, beneath a stack of porn mags no one in their right mind would touch. The email from United Airlines confirming his flight purchase was crumpled from Derek’s fingers.

“You’re leaving.”

Stiles made a face, kicking his bedroom door shut. “For college. You know I got into NYU.”

“Fall semester doesn’t start for months. You’re leaving in a week.”

“Yeah, I still need to pack.”

Derek tossed the itinerary onto the bed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He stared at Stiles calmly, with none of the anger Stiles thought the other man would have in his eyes.

“When were you going to tell me?” Derek asked.

Stiles opened his mouth, a lie on the tip of his tongue, but Derek would hear it in his heart beat, smell it on his skin. So he stayed quiet, practicing silence like Deaton kept telling him to (“It’s called meditation, Stiles.” “It’s called being bored out of my fucking mind.”).

Derek grimaced, running a hand through his hair. “Did you think we wouldn’t notice you being gone?”

“Honestly? I didn’t think it mattered,” Stiles said.

Translation: he didn’t think anyone would care.

But Lydia might, and Erica. Scott would have once upon a time but that was in some parallel universe that Stiles would never see. Stiles wasn’t as close to Isaac and Boyd as he could’ve been but he was okay with that. He’d taken a cue from Jackson, after his parents had shipped the other boy to an East Coast boarding school for his last two years of high school. Distance mattered, it always would from here on out if he was going to keep everyone safe.

“You’re pack,” Derek ground out.

“Am I?”

“I know what Deaton is training you to be. That doesn’t change your place with us.”

“Deaton said your family knew what he was.”

Derek shrugged stiffly. “Are you asking if I blame him for the fire?”

“He wasn’t here when it happened.”

“No, he wasn’t. Laura and I left town before he returned. We hit the road, went to ground, and whatever proof we could’ve have given him…it wouldn’t matter, Stiles. Not then, not now, but I don’t blame him for not being there.”

“Will you blame me?” Stiles asked as he sprawled into his computer chair, crossing his arms over his chest. He couldn’t look at Derek and looked at the ceiling instead. “Because I’m not going to stop doing this or being this.”

“No, I won’t blame you.”

Stiles blinked at the ceiling, eyes catching on the faded and peeling glow-in-the-dark star stickers he’d put up there back in the fifth grade when he’d been obsessed with being an astronaut for a month. They didn’t glow anymore and he’d forgotten they were even there.

He heard the bed creak as Derek moved and suddenly the view of the ceiling was blocked by Derek’s face as the other man braced his hands on the arms of the chair and leaned over Stiles. This close, Stiles could feel the abnormal heat that poured off Derek’s body. Werewolves ran about five degrees hotter than a normal human did. Stiles always found that fascinating and not because he fantasized about what it would be like to sleep in the same bed as Derek.

“Tell them you’re leaving,” Derek said.

“You’re still terrible with words. All I heard was an order and you know I’m crap at listening to those.”

“Stiles.”

“Okay, okay. Damn, you’re pushy today. I’ll do it tomorrow.” He kicked at Derek’s shin, knowing he couldn’t leave a bruise. “Admit it. You’re gonna miss me.”

Derek smiled at him, the expression tight and small, but real. Derek never answered Stiles but a week later, when his dad drove him to the airport, Stiles saw Derek’s Camaro parked at the corner of their block. He didn’t see Derek, but he could feel the alpha’s eyes burning into his back all the way to the East Coast.

*

_One year ago_

Stiles always traveled with a Sharpie pen. He had, at minimum, three on his person at all times. Sharpie ink wouldn’t wash off immediately in rain, wouldn’t fade for days, and to be honest, Stiles liked the smell when he uncapped them. He kept multiple Sharpies on hand because that way he (supposedly) wouldn’t run out of ink.

Tomorrow, he was going to buy a box of them and keep it in his pocket, he didn’t care how ridiculous it looked.

“Hurry your skinny white ass _up_ , Stiles!” Tiana yelled at him from the bottom of the subway stairs.

“I would, but we kind of have a problem!” Stiles yelled back, tossing his last Sharpie away with a curse. He’d lost his other two in the run for cover from the Haven Café and this was what being shit out of luck must feel like.

Something whistled through the air overhead and Stiles automatically ducked. The explosion on Sixth Avenue sent debris cutting through the air, some of which bounced off the makeshift magical shield that covered the subway entrance. Pieces got through though, finding the holes that Stiles hadn’t yet closed because he’d _run out of fucking ink._

“Stiles!”

He swore, a litany of babbled curses and told himself to “Pull it the fuck together, Stilinski.”

So he’d run out of ink. It wasn’t the end of the world (it totally was). As a last resort, he still had blood running through his veins.

The switchblade tucked into his boot was easy to reach. He snapped it open with a flick of his wrist and dragged the blade over his forearm without thinking twice about what he was doing. Blood welled up in a bright red line—

“Are you seriously _cutting_ yourself?” Tiana yelled.

—and wow, that was a bad idea.

“No?” Stiles said in a voice several octaves higher because _ow_. He steeled himself and dragged his fingers through the blood, using it to finish painting the last few symbols of the protective ward on the dirty wall of the stairwell.

_“Stiles!”_

He finished the last swirl right as a shadow fell over him. Stiles looked up and froze like a deer in headlights at the alien standing on the street looking down at him. Human-shaped, but not human enough for his eyes to really accept what he was seeing. Too-shiny armor that looked like nothing found on Earth and the eerie hum of a strange weapon pointed right at him.

Hands grabbed him from behind and _yanked_. Stiles lost his balance, so did Tiana, and the two of them tumbled down the stairs in a tangle of limbs. They hit the middle landing right as the alien’s energy blast hit the solidified magical shield covering the subway entrance.

It ricocheted. The alien tried to shoot at them again and still couldn’t get through the barrier. Stiles threw his arms up in victory with a shout, not caring about the throbbing ache in his limbs from their uncontrolled fall. Tiana smacked him over the head without even looking.

“Shut up and get moving!” she hissed.

They scrambled to their feet and careened down the stairs to the station below. People were using the subway as a bunker, taking shelter from the onslaught of a crazy ass alien attack going on in the skies and streets of Manhattan.

“Knew I shouldn’t have taken a gap year and just gone straight to Harvard Law,” Tiana muttered under her breath.

“Most people don’t take gap years to begin with. If they do, it’s before undergrad,” Stiles said.

“I wasn’t asking you.”

“Whatever. Did you ward the other entrance?”

“Quicker than you, apparently.”

“Oh, ha, ha. Just because I don’t carry around a dozen tubes of lipstick in my non-existent purse as back up to your graffiti pen doesn’t mean my idea sucked. Besides, what did I tell you? Duck and cover all the way.”

Tiana pointed at her purse then at his still bleeding arm. “Do you see me bleeding? Maybe that’ll teach you to quit doodling on the receipt paper at work and keep your tools intact.”

They both went quiet at her words, thinking of the café they’d run from barely thirty minutes ago. They were the only ones working today and neither had expected to have to run for their lives before the lunch hour rush was over. A loud rumbling sound from above made them instinctively hunch their shoulders. The walls shook ominously, dust floating down onto everyone’s heads.

“Our magic is going to hold,” Tiana said quietly, enunciating clearly. Stiles could hear every ounce of belief Tiana carried in her words.

“Yeah,” he echoed. Because to not believe meant they weren’t getting out of this alive.

Tiana quirked an eyebrow at him. “Fucking aliens, man.”

“Must be Tuesday.”

They stared at each other for a few seconds before dissolving into laughter just this side of hysterical while a miniature war raged on above them.

*

_Now_

The first time Stiles set foot on the rebuilt Helicarrier, he manfully restrained himself from fangirling in a corner about being. On. The. Helicarrier.

The second time Stiles set foot on the Helicarrier, he met Director Fury and discovered the rumors were true, that Fury could make a grown man run screaming in terror with a single look. Stiles would deny under oath that he hid behind Tony after the first five seconds of being in Fury’s office, video proof be damned.

The novelty wore off by the fifth time. The sixth time he joined Tony on the Helicarrier, Stiles was waylaid by one of the scientists in R&D assigned to the flying fortress and dragged off to play consultant.

(“It’s a box with a weird energy signature we can’t identify,” the disgruntled scientist said, glaring at the elaborately carved wooden box sitting innocently on a work table.

Stiles stared at the scientist with a horrified expression on his face. “But did you open it?”

“Of course we opened it.”

“Oh my god.”

The day Stiles had to exorcise Maria Hill of the demon that crawled out of the dibbuk box was not a fun day.

“Right, we’re doubling your consultant fee,” Tony said when all the excitement was over.

Stiles just whimpered in pain on the Quinjet’s seat bench and didn’t argue.)

Joining Tony on the Helicarrier became a normal part of his job. When Stiles came aboard, it usually wasn’t directly related to the Avengers and more because Tony wanted to argue Stark Industry contracts with Fury. Pepper tended to handle those through their scarily efficient legal team but Tony liked to shake things up at S.H.I.E.L.D. even if he could never shake up Fury.

Inevitably, if Stiles wasn’t being interrogated by scientists, he was cooped up in Coulson’s office answering whatever weird question of the day Clint had for him. Stiles had limited access to the Helicarrier but he honestly didn’t mind staying in Coulson’s office since it meant he wasn’t anywhere near Fury.

“So, vampires,” Clint said. “Real or not real?”

Clint was sitting behind Coulson’s desk today, expertly flicking playing cards one by one into the rind of a watermelon. Stiles was more impressed that Clint had managed to smuggle an entire watermelon out of the mess than he was by the card trick. The cooks on the Helicarrier guarded their territory zealously from all comers. When flying over the ocean and covertly breaching unfriendly borders for weeks at a time, the good snacks went quick, starting with fresh fruit, and people were known to do _anything_ for a pint of Ben  & Jerry’s if there was even a hint of rumor of the ice-cream’s existence. Dry-spells on the Helicarrier were ugly.

“Real,” Stiles said, glancing up from the StarkTablet where he was colluding with Pepper on Tony’s schedule via email.

“Oh, come on, seriously?” Clint said, grinning at Stiles. He had his feet up on Coulson’s desk and was aiming at the watermelon around his boots as an added challenge. He never missed.

“Seriously.”

“Do they sparkle?”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “You aren’t a teenage girl, Clint. This is not a paranormal romance.”

“Yeah, but I’m not the one dating a werewolf.”

“I will explode the watermelon in your face.”

“Make a mess of Coulson’s paperwork and he’ll be forced to kill you with a paperclip. Then I’ll never hear the end of Tony’s bitching. But back to my question. If vampires are real, how would I kill them? Stake through the heart? Holy water? A double order of garlic fries?”

“Stake, or in your case, an arrow, through the heart will incapacitate them. Then you need to cut off the head and limbs and burn each body part in a separate fire.”

Clint paused, the Ace of Spades held tightly between his thumb and forefinger. “That seems a little labor intensive.”

Stiles shrugged. “People used to bury vampires in the olden days. Didn’t do much good. They’re called the undead for a reason. If you don’t burn them, they’ll just come back with a grudge.”

“Plain old dismemberment doesn’t stop them?”

“The body parts always manage to find each other again.”

Clint raised an eyebrow. “That’s disturbing.”

“Tell me about it.”

*

_Four years ago_

“You should have told me, Stiles,” his dad said.

“It wasn’t my secret to tell.” Stiles crossed his arms over his chest and tried not to sulk. Looking his dad in the eye was getting harder and harder because the video image of his father did nothing to dampen the torrent of emotion crossing his dad’s face and Stiles felt so, so guilty.

“You were running around after monsters and almost getting killed when you were sixteen years old!”

“I told you it wasn’t drugs. You never believed me.”

“Because _werewolves_ isn’t an answer any sane person would expect from their child!”

Stiles rubbed at his face, feeling a headache starting to form right behind his eyes. “Dad, I’m okay. See? I’m right here, alive and in one piece.”

“And how many times were you not in one piece?” his dad asked in a low, wrecked sort of voice.

Stiles was going to find out which of his friends set up this Skype call for his dad and strike them from his Christmas list. They were getting coal in their stocking when he flew back for the holidays at the end of the year, and that only if Stiles was in a forgiving mood.

“Does it matter? It’s in the past.”

“But it hasn’t stopped, has it?”

“No,” he answered honestly, for the first time in months, in years.

It was utterly ridiculous how good that made Stiles feel when his answer only served to terrify his dad.

*

_Six years ago_

La Guardia Airport was like its own mini-city and Nicole Jacobson was a perfect island of sanity that everyone moved around. She exuded presence and personality to the Nth degree and Stiles was both intimidated by, and in awe of, Deaton’s older sister. Classily dressed, with her hair straightened and neatly pinned back from an ageless face, Nicole was getting second looks from men both young and old. None of them stood a chance at earning her attention according to the wedding band on her ring finger.

“Mrs. Jacobson,” Stiles said, belatedly sticking out his hand in greeting after staring at her wordlessly for at least thirty seconds once she said his name. “Sorry.”

Nicole shook his hand and smiled. “Alan’s told me a lot about you, Stiles. I must say, I’ve been curious to meet you. My brother hasn’t trained anyone in our ways in years.”

“Er, he didn’t tell me that.”

“Alan doesn’t tell anyone anything if he doesn’t have to. It’s a family trait,” was her dry response. “Come on, let’s get your luggage.”

Stiles had packed two heavy suitcases (grumbling all the time about the excess baggage fee) for his immediate needs. His dad was shipping the rest of his stuff via freight. Nicole took charge of one of the suitcases and led the way to the parking garage, cutting through the crowd like a pro. Stiles managed not to run into anyone as he followed in her wake, but it was a near thing. Coming from Beacon Hills to a city as big as New York was going to take some getting used to, he realized.

Nicole didn’t speak again until they were on the freeway, fighting midday traffic into Manhattan in her shiny BMW. “Deaton said you left your pack behind.”

Stiles dug his fingers into his knees for a few seconds before forcing himself to relax. “I left them in California. I didn’t leave them behind.”

“Mm. We’re going to have to work on your distinction skills.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were born with a spark, Stiles. Instead of joining a coven like almost everyone else with magic does, you chose to become a warden. There are laws we have to follow that no one else does.”

“I know. Everyone follows some kind of code in the supernatural world.”

“Distinction, Stiles. You need to learn it. Our laws are absolute and rarely change. Codes can become ambiguous given enough time and gray area in the world. Wardens exist to provide a balance that would otherwise result in a slaughter with no regard as to who or what was dying if that balance came undone. Judge, jury, and executioner. That’s our job and no one else’s.”

“So is that part of the reason why you became a lawyer? Extra practice for the courtroom?”

“My first job was pouring coffee in my mother’s café. I could have worked in the food industry for the rest of my life and it still wouldn’t have changed how I view the world.” She switched lanes, easing between two taxi cabs. “The world has its share of monsters and some of them are even human.”

Stiles bristled. “My pack _is_ human. It doesn’t matter that most of them turn furry during the full moon.”

“I didn’t say they weren’t human. Monsters aren’t all beasts and some humans lack humanity. It’s a gray area we don’t always get the luxury of applying labels to because our job isn’t making excuses for those who think they’ve been wronged. Our job is to prevent the rest of the world from looking too deep into the shadows.”

“By killing the ones who make too many waves?”

“By killing the ones who don’t follow the codes we wrote for them.”

Stiles did a double-take, gaping at her. “Deaton definitely didn’t tell me _that_.”

Nicole smiled thinly. “Hunters police the monsters of the world and wardens monitor both sides of the fight so your regular old neighbor down the street or down the hall never finds out that the boogeyman is real. We interfere only when necessary and only when _our_ laws are being broken. The same standard of care we apply to those we monitor applies to us as well.”

“Are you saying I can’t keep my pack?”

“I’m saying you can’t let yourself be viewed as someone who has a bias in this line of work, Stiles. You can’t be neutral if you have favorites. You need to be very, very careful in how you carry out your duties because the hardest thing you will ever do in this job will be to not interfere. That’s as much our duty as the executions are. And you’ll hate yourself for it, don’t think you won’t.”

“I know that. Why do you think I moved all the way across the country? I’m here so no one can accuse me of favoring my pack over everyone else but they’re still my pack. I’m not giving them up,” Stiles said quietly, with steel in his voice.

Nicole never took her eyes off the road. “Like I said. We need to work on your distinction skills.”

*

_Now_

When Stiles showed up on the Helicarrier’s flight deck, he arrived without his baseball bat but it didn’t matter. Tony knew something was up anyway.

“This meeting on Capitol Hill is for the Avengers, not me solo, so why are you up here when you should be hiding from Fury in Coulson’s office until we get back?” Tony asked.

Tony stood at the bottom of the Quinjet’s ramp, staring intently at his StarkPhone and the latest message Pepper had sent him about not fucking this up. (Tony’s words, Pepper’s feelings on the matter, and Stiles had long ago learned to run for shelter when those two got in an argument.)

Stiles gave his boss the best innocent look in his repertoire. “I need a ride.”

“You don’t need a ride. You need a cover.” Tony waved a hand at the suit Stiles was wearing. “The red tie and pocket kerchief gave you away. Not as obvious as that hoodie you wear when you take a leave of absence, but don’t think I don’t know what the color red means to you.”

“Inside joke,” Stiles retorted.

“Yeah, not so inside because Thor is the only person on this planet who hasn’t heard of Little Red Riding Hood.”

“WHAT IS THIS HOOD THAT YOU SPEAK OF? IS IT A HELM OF HONOR?” Thor boomed from the inside of the Quinjet.

“More like a bastardized fairy tale, big guy. I’ll get JARVIS to tell you the story before bed tonight.”

Stiles’ mouth twitched with a smile. “Are you seriously going to read a classic bedtime story to Thor?”

“The subtle intricacies of Go The Fuck To Sleep would be lost on him. You’re changing the subject.”

“No I’m not. I’m waiting for you to say yes, I get to come with you because I’m the second-best personal assistant you’ve ever had and you feel the need to reward me for a job well done.”

“Usually people ask for bonuses, and in Pepper’s case, shoes, not trips to the cesspool that is Washington, D.C.”

“If you say no, I’ll just fly commercial.”

Tony narrowed his eyes and finally looked up from his StarkPhone. “Like hell you will. Get on the Quinjet.”

Stiles flashed Tony the victory sign and scrambled up the ramp to take a seat beside Coulson. Stiles strapped himself in and pulled out a Sharpie from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He capped and recapped it a few times before tapping the pen nervously against the back of one hand.

“Should I be worried?” Coulson asked, not looking up from the brief he was reading on his tablet. Coulson was here as the Avengers’ liaison and not their babysitter. The Avengers knew how to get shit done; Coulson’s job was to ensure they could do it with the least amount of political interference possible. Hence, this trip.

Natasha and Clint were the Avengers’ go-to pilots (because no one trusted Tony behind the stick of any aircraft) and were currently double-checking their flight plan with the Helicarrier’s control tower to make sure they were cleared for restricted D.C. airspace. Thor was sitting straight-backed in his seat, Mjölnir resting across his knees. Bruce was watching a comedy movie on his phone and reflexively drinking from his travel mug of tea. No one except Coulson was paying any attention to Stiles, but that was more than enough to put him on edge.

“Uh, why?” Stiles asked carefully.

“Because your planning abilities leave something to be desired. The Tony Stark School of Improvisation is never a good foundation for anything.”

Stiles sucked in a deep breath as quietly as he could. “It won’t impact the Avengers or Tony in any way.”

“Mm.” Coulson kept methodically scrolling through his brief. “And how will it impact you?”

Stiles uncapped his Sharpie and carefully began to draw the base of an illusion ward on the back of his left hand as Steve and Tony came into the Quinjet, arguing about the upcoming meeting with the President of the United States and current leaders of Congress.

“It won’t.”

*

_Five years ago_

Stiles went home for two weeks in the summer between his freshman and sophomore year of college. He went after the Fourth of July because tickets were marginally cheaper. (The fact that the fireworks show over New York was way better than the one in Beacon Hills didn’t factor in to his travel decisions at all.) Stiles slept in his childhood bedroom, stripped bare of most of his personality, everything he wanted or needed having been shipped across the country when he was eighteen. The rest had been tucked away into the garage, collecting dust.

When he wasn’t having dinner with his dad, Stiles spent the rest of his time at the renovated Hale house with the pack, watching Derek run the betas through training, and catching up with everyone. The pack had scattered for college, with Scott getting into UC Davis by the skin of his teeth and a lot of financial aid. Erica and Boyd were enrolled at CSU Chico, Isaac had made it into Berkeley, and the three of them returned to Beacon Hills every weekend, rain or shine. Scott came back once a month, still uneasy with Derek as his alpha but knowing he had to make an effort at being accessible if the pack was going to work.

Lydia, being Lydia, had made it into MIT. (Because no one was surprised and no one in their right mind would take the bet of her not getting in.) Jackson was at Stanford, having defied his parents for undergrad (“I’ve been on the East Coast for two years. I’m not staying for another four at Yale.”) and returned to Beacon Hills on school breaks. Allison, having moved around so much growing up, enrolled herself in Sacramento City College to better boost her chances at getting into UC Davis as a transfer student.

Derek covered what scholarships wouldn’t for those who weren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouths, even if Scott wouldn’t take his money outright. (Derek paid Melissa the funds at the start of every term to hold in trust for when the loans came due once Scott graduated.) He’d offered to help Stiles out but Stiles had declined. He didn’t need Derek’s blood money when he had his own.

What it all came down to was that Stiles’ friends were a group of incredibly smart people, pursuing their own passions, even when that passion resulted in broken bones.

Erica tossed Jackson into the nearest tree and crowed in triumph when he didn’t immediately pick himself up off the ground. “Yes! Ten points to me!”

“Jackson! Have you even kept up your training at Stanford?” Lydia yelled from porch swing where she was relaxing like the math queen she was.

“If by training you mean drinking his fellow fraternity brothers under the table, then yes, he has,” Stiles answered for Jackson from where he was sprawled on the cool cement of the front porch. Summer in Beacon Hills was less hideous than New York, but only by a few degrees.

“I heard that, Stilinski!” Jackson yelled as he clambered back to his feet.

“I don’t hear you denying it!” Stiles shouted back.

Lydia turned her head and frowned at Derek. “You really ought to make Jackson come home more often. He needs time with the pack, even if he won’t admit it. The same goes for Stiles.”

Stiles waved his half-empty Coke can at her. “Hey! West Coaster for life over here. New York hasn’t seduced me yet.”

Derek glanced down at where Stiles lay on the porch and kicked his foot gently. “Make sure that it doesn’t.”

Stiles saluted Derek with his Coke can. “I’m not staying there forever.”

But a lifetime could feel like forever and Stiles had already admitted to himself that he was sacrificing his twenties to the cause. That was a long enough time for the pack to get their undergraduate and graduate degrees if they stuck to the course loads. It was long enough for them to find jobs in their chosen fields of interest and begin to build a human life out of the animal instincts that drove nearly all of them when the moon was full.

Stiles hadn’t chosen his major for the money it might bring him, but for the immediate skills it could give him. Stiles was very much a product of his generation, demanding instant gratification because it came in handy on a job. Magic was as much the physical manipulation of the real world as it was an inner spark of power and belief. Chemistry was a foundational skill he couldn’t easily walk away from, not when it gave him better control of his magic.

Derek shook his head and vaulted over the porch railing to join the rest of his betas in the woodsy backyard. He stripped off his shirt as he went, tossing it on the dry grass. Stiles had to check his mouth to make sure he wasn’t drooling.

“You’re not fooling anyone, Stiles,” Lydia said as she flipped another page in the MIT Technology Review journal she was reading.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Stiles said breezily.

“Liar.”

“I really don’t. Hey, are there any brownies left?”

(She cornered him before he left that night, out in the woods when he’d slipped away to do one final check on the wards he’d set around the Hale house. “I know why you stay away, but is the distance worth it?”

Stiles kissed her on the cheek beneath the sparkling glow of witchlight guiding their way. “Lydia Martin, you and the rest of the furballs will always be worth it.”)

*

_Four years ago_

“You sure you don’t want me to give you a ride to the airport?” his dad said. “I can call ahead and let the station know I’ll be late.”

“It’s fine, dad. Allison said she’d drive me. Now get out of here before you need to use your sirens to make sure you start on time.”

“All right, son. Have a safe flight and call me when you land, none of those texts with smiley faces that I can’t read. I want to hear your voice.”

Stiles chuckled and gave his dad a quick hug. “I’ll be back in a month for Christmas. Don’t worry, old man.”

(Parents always worried. That was a universal fact. With his dad being a cop and his teenage years spent ridding the town of murderous monsters, Stiles knew how all-consuming worry could be. Stiles figured if his job at the café ever fell through, he’d make bank as a manny because kids, man. All you did was worry about them.)

Allison picked him up on time an hour later, her backseat stuffed with moving boxes. Luckily, she’d left him enough room in the trunk for his carry-on. She was dropping him off at the airport then hitting the I-5 back south to Sacramento. She had an 8:00 a.m. class on Monday. So did Stiles. He was not looking forward to it.

“Do I want to know?” Stiles asked, peering over the top of the boxes. She’d left herself just enough space to see what was behind her on the road and that was it.

Allison pulled out into the street, hands clenched tight around the steering wheel, knuckles white. “I’m sorry about my dad.”

“Dude, don’t apologize. Overprotective father, I get that. Trust me, do I ever.”

“He threatened you.”

Stiles waved a hand at her. “In the fairness of, you know, full disclosure and being your boyfriend’s moderately estranged best friend, I should tell you I put your dad on notice. So technically, _I_ threatened _him_ , but I think we both ruined your Thanksgiving. Sorry about that.”

“He wants me to leave the pack,” Allison blurted out.

“He’s wanted you to leave the pack since you fell for Scott in high school. That isn’t new.”

Allison let out a choked little laugh. “He hates Scott.”

“Uh, yeah. We all know that. What’s really bothering you?”

“He kicked me out.”

“You don’t live with him anymore.”

“He didn’t kick me out of the house, Stiles. He kicked me out of the family.”

Stiles whistled low and long. And oh, Derek hadn’t mentioned that at all when he’d come by on Wednesday. Stiles was going to have a talk with him about using his words.

“You sure it wasn’t just a heat of the moment thing? People say hurtful stuff in the middle of an argument all the time,” Stiles said.

“I don’t know. I just know I don’t want to lose either of them,” Allison whispered. “But Scott—we’ve been through so much. If I had to choose…”

Her voice trailed off but she didn’t need to finish the sentence. Stiles knew where Allison’s loyalties lay. She’d climbed out of her rage-fuelled, depression-filled hole in sophomore year of high school to become a full-fledged member of Derek’s pack during the fight against the alpha pack. She’d made her apologies to Boyd and Erica for using them as a pin cushion, and while those three would never be close, they’d learned to watch each other’s backs over the years.

Allison was pack. Stiles hadn’t lied to Chris when he’d said that. But she came from a prominent hunter family and she couldn’t escape her name.

“The Argents teach their women to lead and their men to fight. Chris can’t kick you out of your family because he doesn’t have the right to do so.”

“My dad is the head of my family.”

“He’s head of the family only until you decide otherwise. But that’s your decision to make and I can’t make it for you,” Stiles said carefully. “No one can.”

Stiles pretended he didn’t see her wiping away her tears and Allison pretended he wasn’t there while she cried. They drove in silence for the rest of the trip, the miles ticking over on the odometer.

(Chris and Allison would work out their issues. It would take time, years even, and a diamond on her ring finger and a church aisle that Chris couldn’t let her walk down alone before the bridges they’d burned as a family, starting with Derek’s, could ever be rebuilt.)

“Your dad will come around,” Stiles promised when they pulled up to the passenger drop-off area. “He loves you. I don’t think that will change just because you’re in love with a werewolf.”

Allison gave Stiles a watery smile and popped the trunk so he could get his bag. “Don’t be a stranger.”

*

_Now_

The U.S. Capitol building was an enduring piece of national architecture that Stiles didn’t set a single foot in. The Avengers did (because not even Fury could pass up a photo op for the dog and pony show as good as that one) and no one noticed when Stiles walked away from the group after getting his hands on a VIP All Access security pass, courtesy of being Tony Stark’s personal assistant.

A little magic went a long way sometimes, and made for a good escape. Stiles only wished it could get rid of his panic attacks because the tightness in his chest was familiar and something he didn’t want to deal with right now.

Stiles inked the last symbol of the illusion ward on the back of his hand, the tail of it twisting around his wrist. He felt his magic settle around him like a shroud, color leaching from the world around him.

“I can do this,” Stiles told himself, hopping in place a little. “I can totally do this.”

He strode down the cement pathway that would take him away from the Capitol building to First Street. His destination: the Senate Hart Office Building.

His mission, having chosen to accept it: the execution of a United States Senator.

Stiles threw up his breakfast in the gutter. Tiana wasn’t around to mock him for losing, and then finding, his courage.

*

_Six months ago_

“Man, I can’t believe you live here,” Scott said.

Stiles shrugged a little self-consciously. “I had an apartment in the West Side for the longest time before Tony put me up in here. Trust me, I couldn’t afford a place like this if he wasn’t fronting all the costs.”

Tony had moved him to one of the apartments in the residential levels of Avengers Tower (formally Stark Tower, though the Deed of Trust still called it that) without Stiles’ permission by hiring a moving crew and chucking the keys to his new digs at Stiles’ head one evening before Stiles left work.

(“You no longer have an apartment. I hired people to move you so I can keep an eye on you. Also for you to be at my beck and call twenty-four hours a day.”

“Because that’s not creepy at all.”

“Seventy-fifth floor, bat boy. Go celebrate by way of phone sex with your boyfriend.”

“I hate you so much.”)

Avengers Tower still housed the corporate offices of Stark Industries. The highly restricted floors that the Avengers used claimed space at the very top of the skyscraper, but the majority of the levels were dedicated to the workings of Stark Industries. The residential buffer zone between the two was for key onsite personnel integral to Tony’s business and who needed the extra security only he could provide them. In Tony’s world view, intellectual property rights extended to owning a person’s brain (Pepper despaired of Tony ever believing otherwise.).

“The view is crazy,” Scott said, pressing his nose to the glass.

“Yeah, it’s definitely worth a couple million bucks I don’t have.”

Scott managed to peel himself away from the wall of windows and went to join Stiles on the couch. Stiles passed him a cold beer and Scott pried the cap off with his fingers. He clinked the bottle against Stiles’ and took a long gulp.

“So.”

“So,” Stiles echoed.

The silence that settled over them was awkward, but didn’t have edge like all the other times this happened when they were alone together in the same room with nothing and no one to act as a buffer between them. It had taken countless phone calls since his dad was in the hospital to convince Scott to come out here for a visit. Now that he was here, Stiles was at a loss for what to do. Herding Tony Stark was easier than talking to his best friend and that was just sad.

“New York’s been good to you,” Scott finally said.

“It’s not home.”

Scott nodded slowly. “Yeah, but you’re not leaving it yet, are you?”

“Nope.”

“When will you?”

“I don’t know. One day.” Stiles chugged half his bottle of beer. “How’s grad school treating you?”

Scott grinned. “I love it. Davis has one of the best veterinary schools in the country and I still can’t believe I got in. You know I get to do a course in exotic animals as part of my clinical rotation next semester?”

“No shit? That’s awesome.”

“I’m not going to go into zoological medicine even though Davis offers it, but I’m not passing up that class. But I figure I should stick to what I know best.”

“Wolves?”

Scott shoved at his shoulder. “No, you idiot. Cats and dogs and other small animals. I kind of like doing shelter medicine but Deaton said he’d take me on as a junior vet when I graduate. I get the feeling he’d be happy to have some help around the place.”

“He’s not as young as he used to be.”

“If I take over his practice, would you take over his other job?”

It was the first time Stiles could recall Scott ever talking about wardens without having an undercurrent of anger in his voice. Stiles owed him an honest answer for his efforts.

“No,” Stiles told him. “When I come back to Beacon Hills, it won’t be as a warden.”

When he came back to Beacon Hills—whenever that would be—he’d come back as pack. Only and always as pack. But it wouldn’t be now, and it wouldn’t be soon.

“I never understood why you wanted to be this. I never understood how you could just turn your back on us,” Scott said quietly. He picked at the label on the beer bottle, peeling up a corner.

“I never turned my back on you or anyone else.”

Scott finished his beer in two swallows, a melancholy sound to his voice when he said, “I know, Stiles. I know that now, after Tiana came to town.”

Such a nice, polite way of glossing over how Tiana executed a team of hunters who’d overstepped their authority in three states and made the final, fatal mistake of magically forcing a heart attack on Stiles’ father in order to flush out the pack. Tiana had killed them, one by one, after Stiles offered up proof to the wardens of the hunters’ misdeeds and stepped aside. (Everyone liked to pretend that Tiana and Lydia didn’t get along fabulously after the fact because theirs was a killer friendship that had Stiles worrying about his sanity.)

Hunters could kill. That was allowed by the code, but who and what they could kill depended on the situation. Killing for the hell of it and leaving a trail of bodies that caught the attention of the FBI wasn’t covered by the code, but it was covered by the wardens’ laws.

Stiles protected his pack at the time the only way he could—by not interfering. It was a decision that still gnawed at him but he wasn’t admitting his doubts to anyone.

“We should have Christmas here this year,” Scott said. “Your place is big enough for the entire pack. Hell, you could afford all our plane tickets now.”

“I’d send Tony’s jet.”

Scott grinned, bumping their shoulders together. “Even better. I’ve always wanted to kiss Allison at Times Square on New Year’s Eve.”

Stiles made a face. “Oh, god, you would want to do that. If we’re planning a pack get-together, I need another beer.”

It wasn’t easy talking to Scott that day, but it was a start. That was all they needed.

*

_Three years ago_

“Shit,” Stiles breathed heavily. “Shit. Oh god.”

His baseball bat fell from nerveless fingers, clattering to a slick cabin floor located somewhere in the forests of Maine. Stiles braced himself against his knees and swallowed hard, trying not to get sick at the sight surrounding him. He forced himself to take it in because he was the one who’d turned the cabin into an homage of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie set. Only his choice of weapon had been a single handgun and an old baseball bat, not a lumberjack tool.

He’d shot the hunter who opened the cabin door right between the eyes, using the man’s body as a makeshift shield while he pushed his way into the cabin. He’d taken another hunter out at the knees before dropping his gun and hiding completely behind his illusion ward. His baseball bat was an extension of his body more than a cold metal gun ever could be and his magic hid it better than the gun.

The hunters never saw Stiles coming. They never saw the baseball bat that crashed into their skulls, caving in bone and brains like so much rotten fruit. Stiles had felt every blow in the joints of his arms, the way human flesh gave beneath his swing (He heard the wet squelching sound it made in his nightmares for months afterwards.). Blood was splattered everywhere, meaty globs of broken flesh sliding slowly down the walls, covering the furniture.

Stiles’ red hoodie stuck to his skin from all the blood that had saturated it. His jeans weren’t much better.

The girl tied to the bed was in far, far worse condition.

Stiles scrubbed the back of his hand over his face, smearing blood and cold sweat across his skin. He scratched at the illusion ward, forcing his magic to fall away, the cabin suddenly becoming that much brighter to his sight, that much uglier. Shaking his head, he stumbled over to the girl and tried not to cry.

Her name was Cassie (she hated the name Cassandra) Wallace. Fifteen years old, oldest of three kids, born to loving parents, all of whom she would never see again. Never, because the hunters at Stiles’ feet had slaughtered her entire family down on the shores of Virginia Beach. Her mother’s only sin was to fall in love with a human who she let hide her skin. They should have been safe, because selkies rarely stayed long on land. The ocean was a jealous mistress but Cassie’s mother had learned to resist the siren call of the sea until it was too late.

Just like Stiles was too late.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, cutting the ropes from Cassie’s wrists and legs. “I’m so sorry.”

She flinched every time his fingers brushed against her skin and didn’t move even after he had freed her. Stiles hovered by the bed for a few seconds before retreating to other side of the cabin, stepping over dead bodies and yanking at his hair as he tried to focus. The closet had clean sheets but no blankets. He pulled one off the top shelf and went to spread it over Cassie’s bruised and naked body.

Her blackened green eyes were dull and lifeless, but she was breathing, and Stiles couldn’t leave her. All he could do was put his back against the door, hold his bat with both hands, and wait for the sun to set.

Cassie moved after the second hour, weak hands feebly pulling and tugging at the sheet until she’d wrapped it around her entire body like a barrier. Stiles’ clothes had stiffened as the blood staining them dried. When night fell, he got to his feet while Cassie cried, left his bat by the door, and went outside to dig some graves.

Time passed. Rigor mortis set in on the bodies around midnight when Stiles finished digging. He dragged the bodies one by one to the hole in the ground, dropping the dead into their final resting place. The four hunters were unrecognizable in the face, heads utterly destroyed by his baseball bat. He left their hands alone for identification purposes but added enough evidence from the mass murder scene in Virginia for the police to link them to their crimes.

He buried them. It was more than they deserved.

Stiles walked back into the cabin and approached the bed as loudly as he could, telegraphing his movements so Cassie would know he was there.

“Cassie, we need to get you cleaned up,” he said, keeping his voice soft and non-threatening.

“Don’t touch me,” she begged. “Please don’t touch me.”

“I won’t. I promise, I won’t. Not without your permission. But we need to go and we can’t leave until you wash up, okay? Can you stand?”

He coaxed her out of the bed with words alone, kept his distance as she crawled to the bathroom one slow inch at a time. Cassie was still crying when she closed the door between them and the shower ran for forty minutes. Stiles knew it would have run longer except the heating system in the cabin was old and the hot water had probably turned cold by the time she turned it off.

It was thirty more minutes before Cassie opened the door again, dressed in a set of Stiles’ spare clothes. They were much too big on her and did nothing to hide the trauma she’d gone through. Her thick brown hair hung in wet tangles around her face and her hands wouldn’t stop shaking when she looked at him, then looked away.

“I couldn’t get clean,” Cassie whispered.

Stiles, sitting in the empty fireplace with soot in his hair and blood under his fingernails, closed his eyes and choked back the rage he felt at her words. She’d had enough violence inflicted upon her in the last three days, she didn’t need to witness any more.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles repeated, the words meaningless in this place where she’d been raped again and again and again.

“They took my skin.”

“I can find it for you.” He opened his eyes, watching how she wouldn’t look at him. “It’s not here, I looked, but I can find it for you.”

“Why? So you can keep me like they did?”

“I’m a warden. We don’t keep anyone.”

Alive or safe, it seemed, in situations like this.

Cassie didn’t trust him and he didn’t blame her. Stiles went back to drawing symbols on the inside of the chimney with his Sharpie pen, pouring his magic into the spell. It flooded out of him, away from him, the sanitization spell coating the cabin interior and eating away at any human trace the two of them might have left behind in all the blood and gore still clinging to the surface.

(The police, when they came, would miss the permanent ink in their search.)

Stiles retrieved his rental car from down the road where he’d hidden it with an illusion ward and drove it back. They left the cabin, left the door unlocked for the curious to find the mess inside. Cassie huddled in the passenger seat while Stiles changed out of his bloody clothes and stuffed them into his duffel bag. He pulled on his last clean pair of jeans and T-shirt, got behind the wheel, and stuck his hand out the window as they drove away.

Magic flowed away from him, sparking brightly in the rearview mirror. It covered their tracks out of the campsite and onto the county road, back to the highway. He didn’t stop until three rest stops later, where he pulled over far from the truckers resting in their rigs to wash up in the empty men’s room.

When he got back to the car, Cassie had the door open and was leaning heavily on it, having puked up stomach acid on the dirty asphalt, snot leaking out of her nose as she cried. The bruising around her eyes was fading, probably from the same sort of supernatural healing his pack had. It wouldn’t be enough to heal her, not how she truly needed it to.

“I need a shower,” she sobbed.

Stiles hovered on the other side of the door, forcing himself to keep his distance when all he wanted to do was hold her and tell her it wasn’t her fault. That none of this was her fault. “Let me help you. Please, Cassie. Please.”

She didn’t say yes, not there, and not at the next rest stop. Stiles checked them into the first motel they came across in New Hampshire hours later and let her have the bathroom first.

Cassie didn’t emerge for three hours and when she did, she wouldn’t eat the food that Stiles had brought her. But she did take the morning-after pill he’d picked up at a twenty-four hour pharmacy. She swallowed it down with tap water from the bathroom sink.

“You said you could find my skin,” Cassie whispered, wrapped up in Stiles’ borrowed clothes again and every bath towel the motel room came with. “How?”

Stiles swallowed and stayed seated on the twin bed he’d claimed as his. “It’s a kind of tracking spell. But for it to work, I’d need some of your blood.”

She pricked her finger for him after another shower and squeezed tiny drops of blood into a plastic water cup for Stiles to use.

He found her seal skin being used as a baby blanket for the oldest dead hunter’s newborn baby in Boston. Standing over the crib in the nursery, Stiles stroked the baby’s face with a steady finger. He could have killed her, smothered her with the blanket hanging off the side of the crib, but he didn’t.

Stiles let her live. The sins of the father didn’t stretch this far, didn’t condemn the newborn to death. The sentencing had been exact when handed down. Stiles had already executed those who’d broken their code because of some sick need to own and destroy another life they didn’t consider human enough to leave alone. The hunter’s bloodline would live on.

It wasn’t justice. Stiles wasn’t sure what it was.

He climbed out the window, having learned from watching Derek all those years ago how to do it without making any noise.

Stiles jogged half a mile away to where he’d parked the car and gave Cassie back her seal skin. She buried her face in the silky dark fur and cried.

He drove them ten hours south with only gas stops to mark the passage of time. He kept his iPod plugged in because otherwise the silence was too suffocating and that way he could pretend he couldn’t hear Cassie cry.

Stiles drove her back down to Virginia Beach but didn’t take her home. He took her to the ocean and walked her to the shoreline, careful not to step too close. He didn’t set foot in the water because the ocean was hers even if nothing else—not even her body—ever would be again.

Cassie disappeared beneath the waves.

Stiles stood on the sand, breathing cold sea air and tasting salt on his tongue.

(Part of the Wallace home invasion and murder case was solved by the discovery of four bodies in a shallow grave up in Maine. The disappearance and presumed killing of the oldest child, one Cassandra Wallace, migrated off the FBI’s active case list and into the hollow archives of the cold case files as the years went by.

Stiles went back to Virginia only once in the years that followed. He never went into the ocean.)

*

_Two years ago_

Stiles’ dad made reservations at Le Bernardin six months in advance for his college graduation dinner and didn’t tell Stiles he’d made it for three people instead of two. 

His dad found Stiles in the sea of people after the commencement was over with Derek’s help, the alpha werewolf easily sniffing Stiles out. As surprises went, it was a sweet one.

Stiles telling his dad that he wasn’t coming home to Beacon Hills anytime soon? Not so much.

“I just don’t understand why you won’t come back to California,” his dad said. “I understand Beacon Hills might not be exciting to you anymore after living here, but if you’re looking for a big city, there’s always San Francisco or Los Angeles. I hear the biotech industry is making a resurgence in the Bay Area.”

“Dad, it’s not about me liking New York more than California. It’s about me doing my job,” Stiles replied. “Look, can we argue about this later? Please?”

His dad visibly checked himself from continuing the conversation and reached for his wine glass. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Let’s just enjoy dinner.”

Halfway through, Stiles learned about Derek’s new hobby.

“Volunteer firefighting isn’t a hobby. It’s a job. And—really?” He took a minute to laugh painfully at the irony. “Dude, that’s like, the world’s biggest fuck you to the universe.”

Derek smiled crookedly, the look in his eyes something from the past even when he stared at Stiles. “Erica’s trying to convince me to do a naked charity calendar. She thinks I’d make a good Mr. July.”

Stiles gave up on being an adult and laughed until he cried.

(Dinner was delicious and mind-boggling expensive. Derek and his dad fought over the bill before Stiles made them do the manly thing and play rock paper scissors in a three star Michelin restaurant to decide who would pay. He took video.)

Later, when Derek had Stiles pressed against the bedroom door of the apartment, his hands down Stiles’ pants, Stiles choked out, “I can’t leave yet. I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“I know,” Derek whispered against the skin of his throat, licking at sweat. “I know.”

It took a week for the hickey to fade, longer for the fingerprint shaped bruises on his hips to disappear. They never stopped feeling like home.

*

_Now_

Senator Edward “Ted” Gallagher was a gray-haired man with a strong jaw who wore his business suit like it was his old Army uniform, all sharp lines and starched cloth. In his late sixties, he looked older, face carrying the weatherworn touch of half a lifetime spent outdoors in the mountains of Montana chasing down werewolves before he got into the field of politics.

Stiles watched as Ted sat down in his comfy looking leather chair and picked up the crystal paperweight that had changed color when Stiles entered the empty room ten minutes ago. An early-warning system to detect active magic with the Senate seal carved on it. Classy. The Senator set it back down slowly, reaching into his suit jacket pocket for either a weapon or his cell phone. Stiles wasn’t keen on finding out which one it’d end up being.

“Don’t,” Stiles said, dropping the illusion ward by scratching a line through the black ink and sucking his magic back into his skin.

Ted was too good of a hunter to startle easily. He didn’t jump at Stiles’ sudden appearance in his Senate office, just narrowed his eyes. “Witch,” he decided after a long moment of contemplation.

Stiles tipped his head to the side and smiled. “Warden.”

Ted chuckled lowly, leaning back in his leather chair. “Well, well, well. After all these years, someone finally found their balls. Here to give me another warning?”

“No.”

“Ah. Here to kill me, then.” Ted eyed Stiles, unimpressed, judging by the look on his face. “Seems they sent a boy to do a man’s job.”

“You aren’t the first person I’ve killed.”

“I won’t be dying today. You think you’ll get very far after shooting me?”

Stiles tapped at his very visible VIP All Access security pass. “This got me in and it’ll get me out. But see, I didn’t bring a gun. I favor a baseball bat but that’s a little hard to sneak through the security checkpoint. I do have a knife on me if that’s how you want to go.”

“Knives make a messy kill. You have to get up close and personal to make it count.”

“I know. Same way you know why I’m here and what you’re dying for.”

“For ridding God’s green earth of the corrupted filth that pretend to be human? Don’t you sit there and judge me, boy, when I’ve served my country in ways my constituents will never understand.”

“Of course you have. I’m sure they’d all vote you back into the Senate after they learned how you killed innocent children by tying them up at a private outdoor shooting range to practice your rifle skills in front of their parents.”

Ted’s mouth curled up in distaste. “Those four-legged beasts are an affront to mankind, playing at being human when they’re nothing but animals.”

“They did nothing to deserve what you and your family have done to them,” Stiles said. 

“They breathe.”

“Wow, that’s some great reasoning right there. You argue bills like that on the Senate floor with such scientific facts?”

“You know, I’m starting to think you wardens are all bark and no bite. You don’t have the balls to kill me.” Ted smiled nastily and leaned forward, secure in his authority. “You aren’t worth my time. Get out of my office.”

Stiles shrugged and got to his feet, tugging his suit jacket straight. “We wrote your code, Edward Gallagher, head of the Gallagher family. And you broke it. We gave you warnings and you ignored them.”

“I’m not interested in—”

Stiles snapped his fingers, a miniature firework burning bright at his fingertips. The flash was mirrored in Senator Edward Gallagher’s brain where neither of them could see it. The human body was a talking, walking mess of chemical reactions and electrical impulses, and Stiles had a love for science he wasn’t ashamed of. The intracranial berry aneurysm that had begun to form when Ted touched the crystal paper weight and soaked up Stiles’ invisible spell through his skin exploded in his brain.

The Senator was dead before the hemorrhaging even had a chance to really start.

Stiles walked around the desk and pressed his fingers to the Senator’s throat, searching for a pulse, just to be sure. He didn’t find one. Stiles stared at the body of a once powerful man and didn’t feel anything except _exhausted_.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “You guys are never interested in talking, just killing.”

Stiles grabbed his Sharpie and inked over the scratch in his skin, solidifying the ward again. The colorless shroud of illusion returned, hiding him from human sight. Heart pounding in his chest, Stiles only had to wait five minutes before one of the Senator’s aides came into the office, eyes on the papers in his hands.

“Senator, I’ve got that—oh my god! Someone call an ambulance!” the man shouted, dropping the papers in shock as he scrambled towards the desk.

Stiles slipped through the open door and got the hell out of there, using the panic as a cover to leave the floor by popping into one of the elevators and positioning himself in a rear corner. As people crowded in on the next floor, Stiles used them as cover to drop his illusion ward when no one was looking. It helped that everyone mostly had their backs to him and the two who didn’t were so engrossed in their argument about policy that they never noticed when Stiles appeared in their peripheral vision.

He walked out with the rest of them into the lobby, through the exit pathway that curved around the security checkpoint, and back outside. The day was still warm but Stiles found himself shivering as he hurried down the sidewalk, head bent against the glare of the sun. The cold sweat on the back of his neck started to dry as the sudden sound of sirens filled the air, getting closer.

Like the footsteps running in his direction.

Stiles half turned at the sound, finding himself facing down a blonde woman with a vague resemblance to the Senator, the still glowing crystal paperweight clutched in one of her hands.

“You bastard,” she snarled with tears in her eyes.

“Look, I—”

Something hard slammed against the back of Stiles’ head, pitching him into darkness.

*

_Three years ago_

“You still haven’t learned how to cook.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re burning the pancakes. That’s like, Cooking 101 and you have failed spectacularly, Mr. big bad alpha.”

Derek scowled down at the skillet where he was, indeed, burning yet another pancake. Stiles, sitting on the wide counter because there weren’t any chairs in the kitchen, gripped the edge with both hands as he doubled over laughing. His hair was a mess, the T-shirt he’d stolen out of Derek’s dresser dusted with flour, and his flannel pants weren’t much better. Stiles hadn’t felt this comfortable in years.

Derek set down the spatula and moved into his personal space, stepping between Stiles’ knees with a fond smile on his face. Derek, being Derek, was cooking shirtless in the kitchen but had spared the rest of the household’s sensibilities (of which there were none, according to Stiles) by putting on a pair of boxers. December in Beacon Hills was cold but the kitchen was warm, and getting warmer.

“You know, you being down here defeats my whole purpose of making you breakfast in bed,” Derek said, tucking his fingers beneath the band of Stiles’ flannel pants.

“Yeah, well, you’re a sentimental freak, you know that? I don’t understand how anyone could think otherwise. Your whole brooding demeanor is a lie and don’t get me started on your inability to—”

Derek slotted his mouth over Stiles’, kissing his way through the mumbled words that Stiles kept trying to form until Stiles gave up and gave in with enthusiasm. He angled his head and licked his way into Derek’s mouth, tasting the good coffee Lydia bought in bulk and the fresh cream Derek bought from the Farmer’s Market every Saturday morning.

Derek’s warm hands moved to splay over his hips, pulling Stiles forward. Stiles enthusiastically wrapped his legs around Derek’s waist and dragged his hands though Derek’s hair, messing it up even more.

He missed this. He always missed this.

“You have a _room_ ,” Erica told them pointedly as she wandered into the kitchen and opened up the refrigerator in search of orange juice. “It comes with a door.”

Derek slid his mouth away from Stiles’, tucking his face against the side of Stiles’ neck, nose pressed behind his ear. “Go away, Erica.”

“I could smell you burning breakfast from the third floor, Derek. Either finish the pancakes or finish Stiles, but you can’t do both at the same time. You aren’t that skilled.”

Derek hauled him off the counter with ease, carrying a laughing Stiles out of the kitchen.

They ended up having sandwiches for lunch.

*

_Now_

Stiles was punched awake.

“Ow,” he moaned, letting his head hang down while the throbbing in his jaw fought for attention over the throbbing in the back of his head. “Ow, that hurts. God, you’re so unoriginal.”

He cracked open his eyes and didn’t get a chance to lift his head before someone did it for him. Fingers tangled in his hair and yanked his head back rather brutally. Stiles found himself staring into the face of a man in his thirties who bore a strong resemblance to a certain dead Senator.

Stiles blinked at Geoffrey Gallagher, first and only son of Edward Gallagher. The Senator had a wife and a younger daughter but a quick glance at the people surrounding them in the comfortable looking living room told Stiles they weren’t here, or at least, not in this room.

“I didn’t think the wardens would actually go through with their bullshit warnings,” Geoffrey said, his fingers tightening in Stiles’ hair.

Stiles winced. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

This time he got a love tap in the stomach that drove all the air out of his lungs. Stiles hunched over Geoffrey’s fist, kind of glad he’d already puked up whatever was in his stomach earlier.

“My cousin, who is witch, followed you out of my father’s office. Don’t lie to me.”

Stiles flexed his fingers, wrists tied at a bad angle behind his back. They’d twisted his hands so that they were back to back, then tied them with what felt like half a dozen plastic zip ties. “Okay. You caught me. But what did you expect us to do? Your father was a dick and your cousin is a shitty witch since she didn’t see me going into the office in the first place.”

The punch to his face made him see stars. Stiles tasted copper on his tongue, felt the unmistakable shift of loose teeth when he clenched his jaw together against the pained noise that wanted to crawl out of his mouth.

“Could’ve sworn assault was illegal in all fifty states and territories,” Stiles said once he managed to get his tongue moving again.

“So is murder.”

Stiles choked on a laugh, knowing the other man wouldn’t understand why he thought that was funny. Gallows humor tasted different for everyone.

Stiles let his head fall back so he could squint up at Geoffrey. Then he moved his head from side to side in a lazy manner, trying to blink the double vision away. He counted eight, no, ten men and women in various states of dress, from business suits on down to jean shorts and a tank top. He put names to faces he remembered from the file Nicole had given him, figuring out who was family by way of blood and who were third parties.

The house was comfortable looking, lived-in, not a safe house like he first thought. It had the flare of suburbia in the curtains but it was dark outside and he couldn’t see any street lights. Stiles could, however, sense a fuck ton of magic surrounding the place. The house was probably shielded.

Fuck his life.

“Where am I?” Stiles asked.

“Does it matter? We tossed your phone in the gutter, so no one is going to find you out here. You’re not leaving this house alive.”

Stiles sighed wearily. “Are you going to monologue at me? Please don’t monologue at me. I’ve heard it all before and it’s so tacky when you guys do that. Be original, for once.”

Geoffrey pulled a Desert Eagle (Stiles assumed the guy was compensating for something) from the holster on his belt and chambered a bullet without even looking. He took aim at Stiles’ torso, gun lined up with Stiles’ pounding heart. “Is this original enough for you?”

“Uh, yeah. I take it back. I’m a big fan of monologuing.”

Stiles reached for his magic even as he spoke. Instead of the cool rush of power running through him, he was hit by a searing backlash of energy. He couldn’t quite choke back a scream and Stiles hunched over with a groan, body twitching like he was seizing.

“My cousin isn’t a shitty witch,” Geoffrey stated coolly.

“Damn straight,” a woman called out.

Stiles let his magic go and the burning sensation dissipated, even if the pain didn’t. Blinking rapidly, he stared at the hardwood floor between his feet and realized the chair he sat in was surrounded by a waxy red circle and white chalk lines.

“Containment spell,” he muttered. Those were never fun.

Slim legs walked into Stiles’ line of sight. He followed them up to look the blonde woman from before in the eye. Now that he wasn’t in the middle of fleeing a murder scene, Stiles remembered that Nicole’s files said she was Geoffrey’s second cousin. He couldn’t for the life of him remember her name right now.

She gave Stiles a grim smile, her eyes reddened from grief and hate. “The Senator was a great man.”

“Wrong. The Senator was a mass murdering fuckhead.”

Stiles’ ears popped when the Desert Eagle went off. The bullet streaked over his right shoulder, cutting so close to his head he thought he felt the burn of its passage against his ear. Geoffrey arched an eyebrow and chambered another bullet.

“How’s that for a warning?” he snarled. “It’s more than you gave my father.”

“Edward Gallagher got plenty of warnings. He chose to ignore them over and over again. He broke our laws. He was judged, he was sentenced, and I executed him. That’s how our world works,” Stiles said through gritted teeth, ears still ringing from the gunshot. “That’s why I’m here.”

“He was a United States Senator, you fucking piece of shit.”

“He was a hunter first and always, just like you. He had a code and he ignored it. He was never going to change.”

“There was nothing wrong with him,” Geoffrey said in a low, vicious voice.

Stiles refused to acknowledge how hard his heart was pounding in his chest. “We’re all a little ugly on the inside. The difference between you and me is that I’m trained to look for it and you’re trained to ignore it.”

“We won’t apologize for doing our job. My uncle wouldn’t have, either. How did you kill him?” Geoffrey’s cousin asked. “There wasn’t a mark on him.”

“Not on the outside. But your family has a history of heart disease. Weak veins. Better cut back on the junk food. I hear it’s bad for your health,” Stiles said, giving them a blood-tinged smile.

Stiles saw Geoffrey’s finger twitch on the trigger (Stiles always swore he saw his life flash before his eyes at that moment) but the bullet missed Stiles by a wide margin due to the freaking _arrow_ that seemed to come out of nowhere, knocking the gun out of Geoffrey’s hand by virtue of slicing off two fingers.

Geoffrey screamed, and the gathering in the living room turned into something less of a brawl and more like a smack down. Cap’s shield spun through the air on a collision course with three of the burlier hunters, Natasha blocked the furthest hallway by virtue of tossing a couple of unconscious bodies on the floor behind her, and Tony came through the living room wall at Stiles’ back in the Iron Man armor, followed by Thor.

The impact sent debris tearing through the circle at Stiles’ feet. Stiles was thrown forward and out of the damaged circle. He twisted his body as hard as he could, using his feet to help shift his center of gravity so he landed on his side instead of his face.

The fight, if one could call it that, was over rather quickly.

“Oh man,” Stiles said, craning his head around to stare at the massive hole where the wall used to be. “I hope your guys’ house insurance covers acts of god.”

“I suppose I am your savior today,” Tony said, his voice coming out of the Iron Man armor’s external speakers in that familiar, distorted echo. “Let’s swap out the wine for whiskey though. Personal tastes, and all.”

“I was talking about Thor.”

“What, I don’t even get an acknowledgment? A thank you? Dibs on head disciple? I’m hurt, wounded, even.” Tony tapped at the arc reactor glowing in his chest. “Right here.”

“Bullshit,” Clint said as he strode in from the direction of main hallway. “Rest of the house is clear.”

“Hold still,” Natasha said. Stiles jerked at the sound of her voice, having not even seen her move. She was suddenly just there, by his side, slipping a knife through the zip ties around his wrists and cutting through the plastic with ease.

“I think I’m envious of your freaky ninja skills,” Stiles told her.

“I think you’ve been hit in the face one too many times,” she said, not unkindly.

“Where’s Bruce?”

“We thought it prudent to leave him in the Quinjet. This is a residential neighborhood. We didn’t want a bad photo op to go with the good one.”

Stiles took her hand when she offered it to him, groaning as he made it to a standing position. Steve and Thor were busy hauling the conscious hunters to their feet, the men and women mostly cowed in the face of the Avengers crashing the not-so-great party. Geoffrey was the only one who didn’t seem impressed. Inflated egos would do that to a person.

“How did you find me?” Stiles asked, shaking out the pins and needles sensation in his arms.

“We followed you,” Tony said, waving one gauntleted hand airily.

“You what? You followed me? But they broke my phone and dumped it.” Stiles paused, narrowing his eyes. “Did you—Tony, did you put a _tracking device_ on me?”

“Technically, it’s in you. Subcutaneous microchip. Comes standard with your 401k and yearly physical.”

Stiles flailed, mouth working in silent disbelief for a few seconds before he found his voice. _“I’m not your pet!”_

“Could’ve fooled me,” Clint said, clearly enjoying how this was playing out. “But don’t feel special. Tony tries to do it with all of us. I think he’s afraid we won’t know how to make it home to the most obnoxious building in New York City.”

“YOUNG BAT BOY. WHAT DO YOU WISH DONE TO THOSE WHO HAVE WRONGED YOU?” Thor asked. More like shouted. He still hadn’t grasped the concept of _indoor voice_ , despite Jane Foster’s diagrams and explanations.

Actually, that might be the problem. Stiles winced, pressing a hand to his ear. He’d think about it later. “We aren’t doing anything to them, Thor. We’re letting them go.”

“What? No,” Tony exclaimed, flipping up the armor’s face mask. “They kidnapped you. They almost killed you. We can toss in a torture charge by your face alone. I’m craving some litigation, Stiles. Don’t deny me my cravings.”

“You do look like you went a few rounds and lost,” Steve said. He slung his shield across his back, keeping one eye on the men and women holding perfectly still while Natasha and Clint divested them of their weapons.

“Yeah, well, my hands were tied at the time.” Stiles touched his jaw gingerly. He could already feel the swelling rising up. The puffiness around his left eye was going to get worse if he didn’t ice it soon. “I’m not pressing charges, Tony. The police can’t do anything here.”

Tony made an indignant squawking sound. Stiles ignored him.

“You’ve done enough already,” Geoffrey spat.

Stiles sighed and headed for where Geoffrey knelt on the floor, holding his bleeding and damaged right hand. Clint kept one arrow trained on the guy, ready to release on a moment’s notice.

Stiles knelt down in front of Geoffrey to put them at eye level, feeling every single part of his body ache with the motion. “There’s not enough wardens to go around. Your father took advantage of our negligence and that’s on us.”

“We don’t need you looking over our shoulders,” Geoffrey said.

“Your actions speak otherwise.”

Geoffrey leaned closer, lips peeling away from his teeth. “Don’t you _dare_ lecture me.”

“Someone needs to. Maybe this time the warnings will stick. This was us wardens fixing our mess and we won’t let it get this far again.”

“By killing my father.”

“Your father died from a massive brain aneurysm. With your family’s health history, no one is going to look beyond the cause of death for something else. They wouldn’t believe it anyway.”

Geoffrey spit in Stiles’ face. Clint put an arrow right between Geoffrey’s legs, the weapon snug against his dick, causing the man to go white in the face.

“You’ve already lost two fingers. If you don’t want to lose anything else, keep your hands and all body fluids to yourself, got it?” Clint said laconically, another arrow already nocked.

Stiles wiped the spit from his face with the careful fingers. Then he reached out and ran those same fingers over Geoffrey’s temples, a little bit of magic sparking between them. Geoffrey jerked back like he’d been burned.

“What did you just do?” he demanded, a hint of fear creeping into his voice.

“When the Governor of Montana offers the Senate seat to you out of respect for your father’s wishes, you’re going to say thanks, but no thanks,” Stiles said, ignoring the question.

“Like hell I will.”

“How’d I know you’d say that?” Stiles sighed and yanked hard at Geoffrey’s messy hair, pulling the other man closer. He didn’t fight back, Clint’s arrow a sharp reminder of the consequences of doing so. “If you don’t say no, the same aneurysm spell I used on your father will explode in your brain. It gets real messy in there when that happens.”

“Is that what you’re doing right now? Killing me with your magic?”

“More like laying the groundwork to deal with future problems.”

Geoffrey glared at him, an angry flush suffusing his face. “This isn’t justice.”

“You’re right. It’s a reprieve.” Stiles shoved Geoffrey away and got to his feet. “I executed your father because that was all the sentencing allowed. You and the rest of your family get one final warning. Break your code, cross the line one more time, and I will be back here to kill every last person carrying your blood in their veins, no matter how far removed. That Ancestry website is pretty damn useful. Do you know you’ve got some fifth cousins down in Alabama?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“As a fucking heart attack.” Stiles smiled viciously, hating himself only a little for enjoying this. “See, I might have graduated with a degree in chemistry but I can play politics with the best of them. Your father paid the price of overstepping his supposed authority. Which means you’re now head of your family and this, Geoffrey Gallagher? Is _your_ final notice. One more fuck up and you’re all gone. So don’t accept the Senate seat and all of you get to live. Capice?”

After a long, tense moment, Geoffrey nodded. Stiles kicked him lightly in the knee. “I didn’t hear you.”

“I won’t accept the Senate seat.” Geoffrey raised his chin stubbornly. “That doesn’t mean I won’t stop hunting.”

“Yeah, I thought you’d say that. So here’s a secret you can go spill to all your friends.” Stiles bent over to rest his hands on his knees so he could better look Geoffrey in the eye. “I’m not the only warden working for S.H.I.E.L.D. Now be a good boy and toe the fucking line, Gallagher.”

Stiles patted Geoffrey on the cheek because he damn well could, then turned around and headed for the hole in the wall that now led to the backyard.

“Did he just blackmail a politician?” Clint asked.

Natasha nodded, looking almost proud. “Son of a politician, but it’s practically the same thing.”

“Damn, kid. You’ve got some balls. We must be rubbing off on you.”

“That’s never a good thing, Barton,” Coulson said from the Quinjet’s ramp, where it was squashing the rose bushes. “Stiles.”

“Agent Coulson,” Stiles said, giving him a tired wave.

“You missed lunch with the President.”

“Did they serve curly fries?”

“No.”

“Couldn’t have been that good of a lunch, then.”

*

_Two years ago_

“I hear congratulations are in order. We’ve got another graduate in the family,” a too familiar voice said.

Stiles’ head snapped up and he glared at the newest customer from behind the espresso machine. “Peter. What are you doing here?”

“Succumbing to my baser instincts and taking a vacation.”

“Stiles,” Tiana said, leaning her hip against the counter. “Who’s your friend?”

“Not a friend,” Stiles replied.

Peter graced Tiana with his most charming smile as he crossed the café. “Pack.”

Tiana raised an eyebrow in obvious judgment. “Mm-hm. You know, I’ve got a deboning knife in the back.”

“You’re a coffee establishment that serves pastries, not a deli.”

Tiana returned Peter’s smile with interest. “I never said the knife belonged to the café.”

Stiles didn’t bother to hide his smirk at the sour expression on Peter’s face. “I can see why my nephew likes to come here.”

Stiles poured a shot of espresso into a small cup of coffee, capped it, and slid the drink across the counter. Peter caught the cup before it tumbled off and made a mess. “You didn’t poison it, did you?” he asked.

“You’ll never know,” Stiles promised.

Peter saluted Stiles with the coffee cup and wandered out of the café the same way he’d wandered in. Tiana watched him go with her arms crossed over her chest. “My mama would skin that boy alive, given half the chance and a little proof.”

“I know.”

“Why is he still around?”

“Keep your enemies closer,” was all Stiles said, rubbing absently at his wrist.

Tiana clucked her tongue at him. “You know what else I’ve got in the back? A bottle of Johnnie Walker.”

Stiles wordlessly passed her two empty cups.

*

_Now_

“You want to talk about it?”

“No,” Stiles grumbled, tossing the ball at Dummy. The bot missed and went wheeling after the bouncing ball through the mess that was Tony’s lab.

“Then why are you down here?”

“You still haven’t signed off on the quarterly reports.”

“I’m always half a year late on those. Pepper knows that.”

“Tony.”

“Why’d you do it if it bothers you so much?”

Stiles sighed in exasperation. Dummy came wheeling back, beeping happily and waving the ball at Stiles. He took it and tossed it at the bot, who caught it this time and tossed it back. Not quite a pick-up game of lacrosse but close enough.

“It’s my job,” Stiles said.

“So quit.”

“I can’t. I have to do this. The same way you have to be Iron Man.”

“I would argue that only because you don’t wear armor and I’m starting to think your little red hoodie won’t cut it. You almost took a bullet to the heart, Stiles. I, more than anyone, know how much that sucks.”

Stiles tipped over backwards to sprawl on the cool metal floor. Dummy nudged his foot and Stiles wiggled his fingers at the bot. Dummy tossed him the ball and he threw it in the opposite direction. Dummy zoomed away after it.

“If he makes a mess, you’re cleaning it up.”

“Dummy always makes a mess,” Stiles said.

Tony turned off the blow torch he was wielding against hapless pieces of metal and pushed up the face plate of the protective helmet. He was sweaty, messy, and in need of a shower. Stiles gave it another hour before Steve wandered down to have his wicked way with the man.

“I pay you not to die,” Tony said.

“No, you pay me to save you from migraines.”

“Same difference.”

Stiles shrugged. “I can’t stop doing this, Tony.”

“When can you? And don’t tell me when you’re dead. I don’t hold stock in clichés and I don’t hire them, so your answer better be good.”

“When my pack is safe.”

“Your pack will never be safe by virtue of what they are,” Tony said, brutally honest. “Try again.”

“When my pack is as safe as I can make them,” Stiles retorted.

He had connections on the East Coast now, and ties to the West Coast, but he didn’t know enough people yet to ensure that Beacon Hills would always be under someone’s watchful eye simply because he was there. Doing what he did, taking the riskiest executions, cemented his reputation within the wardens. He did his job and he did it _well_.

Stiles needed to be remembered so that his pack wouldn’t be forgotten.

“Sir,” JARVIS said, interrupting Stiles’ thoughts. “You wished to be informed when Director Fury arrived.”

“Heads up, Stiles,” Tony said, sounding gleeful. “Time for your very first debrief with our one-eyed overlord.”

Stiles sat up and looked at Tony in betrayal. “You called Fury?”

“Steve called Fury because Fury doesn’t take my calls. And hey, I wasn’t the one who assassinated a United States Senator. That’s on you.”

“Traitor.”

“Again, you.”

“Is it too late to run?”

“It was too late five minutes ago,” Fury barked out through the intercom.

Stiles’ head snapped around and he shrank in on himself at the sight of Fury, standing on the other side of the glass lab door, pointing a gloved finger at him.

“You,” Fury said, glaring at Stiles. “With me.”

“I’m going to die,” Stiles moaned.

Behind him, Tony cackled and upped the heat on the blow torch. Stiles dragged his feet to his doom.

*

_Eight years ago_

Stiles didn’t know what to do, not with the magic pressing against the underside of his skin or the creeping encroachment of the alpha pack circling in for the kill. His thoughts raced in a dozen different directions but he couldn’t open his mouth to speak.

Deaton must have seen it in his eyes, the panic, the need, the desire to survive. Because when Deaton spoke, his voice pierced through Stiles like a lifeline. “If you need help, all you have to do is ask.”

He didn’t then.

(But he would.)


End file.
